3of3Buttigieg and Warren went back and forth throughout the debate about their differences, with her mostly on the attack.Photo: Frederic J. Brown / AFP / Getty Images

Pete Buttigieg has led a charmed existence during his meteoric rise from small-city mayor to top-tier Democratic presidential candidate. That ended Thursday.

Buttigieg took several hits at a candidates debate in Los Angeles, as competitors attacked the 37-year-old mayor for how he funds his campaign and for his lack of government experience in leading anything other than South Bend, Ind.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is vying with Buttigieg at the top of most polls, criticized him for a fundraiser he held this week in the Napa Valley that featured a wine cave “full of crystals and served $900-a-bottle wine.” Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Buttigieg’s rival for moderate Midwesterners, criticized him for not being able to win major races and belittling the Washington service of others in the race who have.

It was Warren who swung hardest.

“We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States,” said Warren, who is not holding private fundraisers. “Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.”

Buttigieg countered that he was the only one of the seven candidates on stage “who is not a millionaire or a billionaire.” He said Warren has paid for her presidential run in part with $10 million transferred from her Senate campaign fund, some of which she raised during private fundraisers.

Warren countered: “I do not sell access to my time. I don’t do call time with millionaires and billionaires. ... I said to anyone who wants to donate to me, if you want to donate to me, that’s fine. But don’t come around later expecting to be named ambassador, because that’s what goes on in these high-dollar fundraisers.”

Said Buttigieg: “If you can’t say no to a donor, then you have no business running in the first place.”

Klobuchar noted that Buttigieg has never won election to anything other than the top job in South Bend, which with a population of 101,000 is slightly smaller than the Contra Costa County city of Antioch. Buttigieg’s first political race was a failed campaign for Indiana treasurer, and he also lost a bid to chair the Democratic National Committee.

Buttigieg has mocked other Democratic candidates for their time in Washington, Klobucher said, while failing to acknowledge their accomplishments there. She noted that Warren led the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, former Vice President Joe Biden helped raise money to cure cancer, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has shepherded veterans legislation.

“So while you can dismiss committee hearings, I think this experience works,” Klobuchar said. The party’s nominee, she said, should show that they have “actually won and been able to show that they can gather the support that you talk about, moderate Republicans and independents, as well as a fired-up Democratic base.”

Buttigieg responded: “If you just go by vote totals, maybe what goes on in my city seems small to you. Want to talk about the capacity to win? Try putting together a coalition to bring you back to office with 80% of the vote as a gay dude (in) Mike Pence’s Indiana,” referring to the former governor and current vice president.

The debate also highlighted policy differences among the candidates, including another exchange between Warren and Buttigieg, this one over their free public college tuition plans. Warren would make tuition available to all students, while Buttigieg would not offer it to those whose families are in the top 10% of earners.

Buttigieg said he agreed with Warren on “on raising more tax revenue from millionaires and billionaires. I just don’t agree on the part about spending it on millionaires and billionaires when it comes to their college tuition.”

Warren replied that Buttigieg “wants billionaires to pay one tuition for their own kids. I want a billionaire to pay enough (in taxes) to cover tuition for all of our kids.”

Other candidates differed on whether to support the recently renegotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which overwhelmingly passed the House on Thursday. Sanders said he would oppose the deal in the Senate, even though it offered “modest improvement over what we have right now.”

“It is not going to stop outsourcing,” Sanders said. “It will not stop manufacturing from moving to Mexico.”

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Klobuchar said despite some reservations, she would support the agreement. “For those farmers in the Midwest, I think this is a much better deal,” she said.

Biden, who has been leading in the national polls, avoided some of the Twitter-rattling gaffes that have plagued many of his debate performances. He also broke new ground by indirectly criticizing former President Barack Obama’s decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan early in his presidency.

“I’m the guy who from the beginning argued it was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan. Period,” Biden said. “We should not have done it. And I argued against it constantly.”

To which Sanders interjected, “You’re also the guy who helped lead us into the disastrous war in Iraq.”

With only seven candidates meeting the Democratic National Committee’s qualifications to appear on stage, New York businessman Andrew Yang received more airtime than usual. When asked why he was the only person of color to qualify, he pivoted to his signature proposal: giving $1,000 a month to every U.S. citizen over age 18 as a form of a universal basic income.

“Fewer than 5% of Americans donate to political campaigns. You know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income,” Yang said. “I guarantee if we had a freedom dividend of $1,000 a month, I would not be the only candidate of color on this stage tonight.”

San Francisco billionaire activist Tom Steyer also received more airtime than in past debates. He used it to tout his progressive stands while highlighting his career as a hedge fund manager as a strength in taking on President Trump.

“I can go toe-to-toe with Mr. Trump and take him down on the economy and expose him as a fraud and a failure,” Steyer said.

Joe Garofoli is the San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer, covering national and state politics. He has worked at The Chronicle since 2000 and in Bay Area journalism since 1992, when he left the Milwaukee Journal. He is the host of “It’s All Political,” The Chronicle’s political podcast. Catch it here: bit.ly/2LSAUjA

He has won numerous awards and covered everything from fashion to the Jeffrey Dahmer serial killings to two Olympic Games to his own vasectomy — which he discussed on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” after being told he couldn’t say the word “balls” on the air. He regularly appears on Bay Area radio and TV talking politics and is available to entertain at bar mitzvahs and First Communions. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and a proud native of Pittsburgh. Go Steelers!